


Sharing Alderaan

by LieselSolo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alderaan, Childhood Memories, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Toddlers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23917285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieselSolo/pseuds/LieselSolo
Summary: When little Ben can't sleep, Leia tells him about Alderaan.
Relationships: Bail Organa & Breha Organa & Leia Organa, Leia Organa & Ben Solo & Han Solo, Leia Organa & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Leia Organa/Han Solo
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	Sharing Alderaan

Every year, Leia gave a speech on Alderaan Memorial Day, the anniversary of Alderaan’s destruction. Some people just called it “Alderaan Day,” but that always felt wrong to Leia, as if they were _celebrating_ her home’s destruction instead of memorializing it. Moreover, every year fewer and fewer people seemed to attend the ceremonies, as if the memory of Alderaan were fading away.

Now she sat in her home office, staring at her computer’s screen, having not written a single word of her speech even though Alderaan Memorial Day was tomorrow. What more could she say that she hadn’t already said in her previous speeches? For that matter, how many people even _remembered_ her speeches from previous years? She could probably just recycle an old speech and no one would even notice. Sure, her old speeches were recorded, but who would even care enough to look into the databases to check?

“Mommy!”

Leia looked down and there was Ben, dressed in his fuzzy sleeper dotted with X-Wings and Y-Wings, his arms up. “Hey, sweetie,” she said with a smile. “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”

“Mommy,” Ben repeated, stretching his arms up further. The toddler didn’t have an extensive vocabulary yet, but he still had his own ways of communicating what he wanted.

“All right, come on up,” said Leia, scooping her son into her arms and sitting him on her lap. She rubbed his stomach, savoring the fuzziness of his sleeper, and kissed his head, inhaling the fruity shampoo scent from his evening bath. “Mmm, you smell clean, yes you do.”

“Com-pu-ter,” said Ben.

“Yes, Mommy’s on the computer. Mommy’s trying to write a speech for Alderaan Memorial Day.”

“Al-daan,” Ben repeated.

“Yes, Alderaan. That’s where Mommy grew up.” Then she got an idea. “Ben, would you like to see Alderaan?”

“Yeah!” Ben said in a perked-up voice. “See Al-daan!”

“All right, then.” Leia rotated Ben’s body so he was facing the computer screen. “Let’s see Alderaan.”

She went on the HoloNet and brought up a holo of Alderaan’s mountains, stretching across the sky, dark purple in the sunset. “Look, these mountains were part of Alderaan.”

“Al-daan!” Ben cheered, clapping his little hands.

“Yes, let’s see some more.”

“More Al-daan!”

Leia brought up another holo, this one of the palace, its towers stretching up against the sunny sky. “Look, that’s the palace where Mommy lived when she was little like you.”

“Mommy home Al-daan.” Ben was giggling now.

“Yes, that was my home on Alderaan.” Leia felt herself smiling despite the fact that her home no longer existed. “Come on, let’s see some more.” She brought up a holo of one of the frozen lakes, people skating on it like they didn’t have a care in the universe. “Mommy used to go skating on this lake right here.”

“Skatin’!” Ben shouted.

“Yes, when you get bigger, Mommy will teach you how to skate.” Her smile grew wider. “In fact, why don’t we go skating now?”

“Go skatin’!” 

With that, Leia put Ben down and stood up next to him, taking his hand. “All right, now hold on, skating can get slippery.”

“Okay.”

Leia bent one knee, leaning to the side. “Now, first one foot . . .” She bent the other knee and leaned to the other side. “. . . then the other foot. One foot, then the other foot.”

“One foot, udder foot,” Ben repeated, copying his mother’s movements.

“Wow, look at you, you’re skating!” said Leia. “And look at all the pretty snow falling!” She raised her free hand as if she were catching snowflakes. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yeah,” said Ben, reaching up as if he could actually see the snowflakes. “Al-daan pwetty.”

“It sure is,” said Leia. “Would you like to see some more holos of Alderaan?”

“Yeah! See more Al-daan!”

. . .

They went through what might have been dozens of holos, every one of which stimulated a story from Leia’s childhood. She might have expected Ben to lose interest after a few holos, but no, he kept wanting to see more and more.

Finally she brought up a family holo of herself at ten years old with her parents, all standing by the palace’s balcony. She swallowed – many of her family’s holos had been destroyed with Alderaan and only the ones that had been uploaded to the HoloNet survived. “There’s me when I was a little girl,” she said, pointing at her younger self.

“Mommy lil girl,” said Ben.

“Yes,” said Leia, now pointing at Breha, “and there’s Breha, my mommy . . .” She pointed at Bail. “. . . and Bail, my daddy.”

Ben grinned as he too pointed at Breha. “Mommy mommy . . .” Now he pointed at Bail. “. . . an’ Mommy daddy!”

“Yes, that’s right!” exclaimed Leia, squeezing her son and kissing his cheek. “My mommy and daddy would love you _so much.”_

Finally Ben yawned. “Yeah . . .” He nestled his head into his mother’s chest. “I wike Al-daan.”

“I like it too – _very_ much.”

It was only a few moments before Ben drifted off to sleep, perhaps to dream about Alderaan. Leia ran her finger through his black curls, wishing she and Han could take him to visit Alderaan for real, wishing Bail and Breha were alive to love him and spoil him like the doting grandparents they would undoubtedly be, wishing, wishing, _wishing,_ even though she knew nothing could be done.

She gathered him into her arms and slowly stood up, careful not to wake him. With his head resting on her shoulder, she carried him into the living room, where Han was watching the holovid on the couch. “Hey,” she said in a playful voice, “someone was up past his bedtime.”

Han looked up at her, grinning when he saw their son. “Well, looks like his mommy got him to sleep anyway.” He stood up and ran his fingers through Ben’s hair. “Want me to take it from here?”

“If you want.”

Han took the sleeping boy into his arms, kissing the child’s head in the process. “C’mon, buddy, it’s beddy-bye time for real now.”

As Han carried Ben to his bedroom, Leia returned to her home office, suddenly feeling inspired, as if showing Ben her home planet had newly stimulated her desire to keep Alderaan alive in spirit. She sat back at the computer and started typing.

_“The memory of Alderaan will live on as we share it with our children . . .”_

THE END


End file.
